Infographic: The Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom

For over a decade, The Wall Street Journal and The Heritage Foundation have tracked economic freedom around the world with the Index of Economic Freedom, creating 10 benchmarks that gauge economic success. This interactive heat map created with The Heritage Foundation allows you to explore the 10 freedoms — from property rights to entrepreneurship — in 184 countries. The map is rendered in SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), allowing us to draw complex shapes directly into the HTML, style them using CSS and attach JavaScript code that triggers when the user interacts with them. This means that the way the data is visualized to the user changes according to their actions and requirements. Using SVG instead of Flash provides compatibility on Apple products and increased support for mobile devices. The application also uses the D3 JavaScript library to optimize the rendering of the map and its data population.